Emily Corwin

Reporter

Emily Corwin covers New Hampshire news, and reports on the state's criminal justice system. She's also one of eight dedicated reporters with the New England News Collaborative, a consortium of public media newsrooms across New England.

Ways to Connect

Over a year ago, residents near Merrimack, New Hampshire learned their drinking water had been contaminated by emissions from a plastics plant owned by the multinational company, Saint-Gobain.

More than a year later, some residents in Merrimack say state and federal officials haven’t done enough to protect them from the contamination. Now, a few are taking things into their own hands, going door to door.

A settlement between the state of Vermont and the plastics company Saint Gobain is catching the attention of some in New Hampshire who say the settlement should change the conversation around water quality here.

On Wednesday morning, Durham’s three-person human rights commission will discuss establishing an Indigenous Peoples Day. Town administrator Todd Selig says the idea came about as the town grappled with pushback over a mural at the local post office.

Governor Sununu signed three bills having to do with water quality last week.

Two new laws will address water contamination from perfluorichemicals – those so called “Teflon toxins” found on the Seacoast and in Southern New Hampshire.

One will allocate $5 million dollars from the state’s water trust to remedy contamination in Amherst. A year ago, the state found perfluorichemicals in private wells surrounding the former TCI plastics plant there.

Last weekend’s rainstorm did more damage than officials initially assessed. On Thursday evening, twenty local roads remained closed.

By Wednesday, cities and towns in Grafton County had upped their flood damage tally from $4 million to nearly $12 million. Two state roads, 116 South in Easton and 25A in Orford, will likely remain closed through the coming weekend, although local traffic can access residences in the interim.

On Thursday, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials began a tour of storm damage in the state.

Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas is overseeing the city prosecutor’s office until an interim city solicitor can take over.

On Thursday, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office shared with Manchester officials findings from an investigation into the city’s domestic violence prosecutions. They outlined a multitude of failures both by a domestic violence prosecutor, and her boss, city solicitor Tom Clark.

Manchester city officials met with the city solicitor and the attorney general’s office Friday to discuss an investigation into Manchester City Solicitor’s office. The meeting was held to discuss quote “corrective action” and “potential terminations.” None of the parties present agreed to discuss the meeting.

The New Hampshire Division of Travel and Tourism predicts an increase in tourism and spending this summer, four percent more than last year – and they expect nearly a million out of state visitors this weekend alone.

The New Hampshire parole board plays a key role in the state’s criminal justice system. Its nine members decide which inmates get out on parole, and which parolees return to prison. Although parole hearings are open to the public, they take place with little oversight or public scrutiny. And, unlike most legal proceedings, they can be surprisingly unrefined affairs.

The NH ACLU has weighed in on a lawsuit against the town of Farmington. In an amicus brief filed in federal court, the organization claims Farmington subjects its employees to a social media policy that violates those employee’s first amendment rights to free speech.

The lawsuit was initiated last year by former Farmington firefighter, Alexander Morin. Farmington fired Morin in 2015, after Morin posted opinions on Facebook during off-duty hours.

Two laws signed by Governor Sununu on Wednesday will limit certain legal arguments in sex crime cases.

Beginning January 1 of next year, a defendant can no longer argue in court that he or she did not know the age of a prostitution or human trafficking victim.

Additionally, Sununu signed a high profile bill strengthening the state’s so-called “rape shield” law. He explained the change would “ensure that the private and unrelated sexual history of sexual assault victims will not be used against them in any court proceeding.”

It took nearly thirty minutes to read all 704 veterans’ names. These were not the few who died in service, but the many who died over the past year throughout New Hampshire. When Jerome Forte’s name was called, Dennie Forte stood and walked to the front of the hall at Manchester’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center. There, Democratic U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan handed her a rose. The ritual would repeat itself hundreds of times that morning.

Every other year, the organization Building On Hope rallies together hundreds of people to renovate a community organization's space.

This time, the organization chose Crisis Center of Central New Hampshire, in Concord. It’s an emergency shelter for domestic violence and other survivors of abuse. Board member E.J. Powers says the project is "In the spirit of yankee barn raisings from many generations ago."

He says builders, architects, painters, designers, and everyday people will volunteer their time, and sometimes, their money.

Manchester Bishop Peter Libasci spent an hour visiting immigrants detained at the Strafford County Jail in Dover on Monday.

The decision to visit the jail came after the Bishop met with a parish in Manchester on Sunday with many Hispanic congregants. That Parish, St Anne-St. Augustin, had sought to protect undocumented immigrants living in the neighborhood by proclaiming itself a, quote, “sanctuary church.”

The Bishop responded last month with a letter urging Catholic churches against such proclamations.

A Manchester police officer allegedly struck a pedestrian with his car early Sunday morning, then fled the scene.

The victim suffered only minor injuries. Officer Steven Comacchia, the alleged driver in the hit and run, is now on leave from the department without pay. He has been charged with a misdemeanor and could face fines or up to a year in jail.

Manchester police chief, Nick Willard, said his department does not know if Comacchia was under the influence of any substances at the time.

New police recruits in New Hampshire get paid by their towns to attend a 16-week police academy run by the state. New officers stay at the training facility during the week, and return home during weekends.

Now, two officers are suing their employers, alleging they were underpaid while attending the academy.

A couple years ago, Manchester police lieutenant Nicole LeDoux and two colleagues decided to crunch some numbers. They found that in a single year, 400 Manchester kids had been at either domestic violence incidents or overdoses when police were called. LeDoux is a fast talker who oversees the juvenile and domestic violence units. “I remember sitting,” she said, “and being like ‘man, that’s a lot of kids. How do we deal with that?’”

There was singing in three languages, chants, even a prayer Monday night at Veterans Park in Manchester. There, demonstrators gathered in a chilly rain to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The administration had created a new urgency for this annual May Day rally.

A bike share program in Manchester could be underway as early as June 1.

Carol Gayman is the engine behind the project. She lives in Manchester, where she rides her bike and works at the YMCA. Manchester is not known for its spending on public goods.

"We needed all private sponsorship dollars for this project to work in Manchester," Gayman said. After 18 months hustling for those sponsorships, Gayman says she’s "99.9 percent certain that as of May 2, it will get the nod from the full board of mayor and alderman."

Jared Barbosa is an Elementary School guidance counselor who was raised by a professional soccer player. His dad, Manoel “Boom Boom” Barbosa, competed all over the world before settling down in Nashua, N.H.

Jared says professional soccer was his dad’s ticket out of poverty in Brazil. College soccer was his ticket to economic mobility.

Saint-Gobain, a multinational plastics company, has agreed to pay for the design efforts to extend public water lines in Bedford. The new water mains will connect to homes with wells contaminated by perfluorichemicals, most likely released from Saint-Gobain’s smokestacks.